Our State is happy to present the Our State Book Club with Wiley Cash! Each month, New York Times bestselling author Wiley Cash handpicks contemporary books by fellow North Carolinian authors and those writing books set in the state, encouraging readers to join in the fun. Wiley will review each book in both the print and digital versions of the magazine and produce two podcast episodes highlighting the selected book and author.
October’s Book Selection
Ron Rash was raised in Boiling Springs, but it’s his grandparents’ farm between Boone and Blowing Rock that defined his youth. His latest novel, The Caretaker, centers on a rural cemetery and a cold war between two families after a marriage crosses social lines.
While cemeteries are often found in Rash’s work, the one in The Caretaker is based on a real place that Rash cared for near his grandparents’ property.
“There was a cemetery up on the other side of the cow pasture hill,” he says. “I had a couple of relatives buried there, including one who’d been killed in World War II. When there’d be a storm, the flowers and grave decorations would blow over onto our land, and I was taught to go up there and put them back in the cemetery, where they belonged.”
In caring for the items left for the deceased, Rash understood “the connection between the living and the dead,” which he refers to as “a kind of abeyance.”
“I’d always wanted to write a book about that place,” he says, “because, in some ways, it’s the most important place in my childhood.”
Pick up your copy today at our partner independent bookshops:
- Bookmarks // Winston-Salem
- Books to Be Red // Ocracoke
- Buxton Village Books // Buxton
- Downtown Books // Manteo
- Highland Books // Brevard
- Main Street Books // Davidson
- Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café // Asheville
- McIntyre’s Books // Pittsboro
- MonkeyKat Books // Sanford
- Pelican Bookstore // Sunset Beach
- Quail Ridge Books // Raleigh
- Quarter Moon Books & Gifts // Topsail Beach
- Sassafras on Main //Waynesville
- Sassafras on Sutton // Black Mountain
- Scuppernong Books // Greensboro
- South Main Book Company // Salisbury
Our State Book Club with Wiley Cash Podcast
Join The New York Times best-selling author and North Carolina native Wiley Cash as he highlights great writers across the state and their work each month. Listen in on conversations between Cash and his author friends as they discuss how North Carolina inspires them on the Our State Book Club podcast.
Click here to start listening.
Our State Book Club Tote Bags
Rep the Our State Book Club with the new exclusive tote bag! Easily carry the latest book club pick or current Our State issue in this roomy and comfortable 100% cotton tote.
Book Reviews
Have you already finished this month’s book and need other recommendations? Check out these titles!
Through the Snow Globe
When a woman encounters a magical snow globe in her small North Carolina town, she’s given the opportunity to face her past and learn to appreciate her present.
Appalachia on the Table
What is Appalachian cuisine? After finding her grandmother’s cookbook, an author combs through the region’s culinary history to find the answer.
Now You Know It All
They aren’t heroes or villains, saints or sinners. The women of each short story in this new collection are complex, with secrets and desires much larger than the North Carolina towns in which they live.
